Measuring the impact of work with volunteers
Written by Anthony Poldervaart (Senior Encouragement Officer) and Amy Butterworth (CEO) from Make It Happen Birkenhead. They talk about how they used a methodology called ‘Ripple Effect Mapping’ to help them understand the impact of their work with volunteers. The Vision for Volunteering has just released some resources for you to carry out your own ‘Ripple Effect Mapping’ work - check them out here.
It was great to be involved in the first Ripple Effect Mapping event led by the Vision for Volunteering Team in Birkenhead. Ripple Effect Mapping is a qualitative data collection method that we had never used before, and it produced some great results. For us at Make It Happen it was a chance to look at the incredible impact working with volunteers and running volunteering projects has had both for them and us in our first four years.
The ripple effect mapping enabled us to analyse the journey we have been on with volunteers, as well as take a deep dive into the ripples in an individual's life that volunteering has started in motion. This could mean someone moving into further education after building up confidence, or being on a pathway into employment through learning new skills while volunteering.
But beyond this, we were able to document:
the impact of an individual’s volunteering on their wider community or social circle
the impact new skills such as conflict resolution have had on a family's resilience
how the social circles built through volunteering have improved an individual's mental health and thus helped reduce pressure on local statutory services.
Individual stories are at the heart of what makes volunteering so powerful and the stories that came out through the mapping exercise were notable for their positivity and diversity; volunteering really has the potential to fit everyone and anyone and be fully inclusive. But it was also interesting to map the impact volunteering projects have had on us at Make It Happen and across the 3rd sector on Wirral. We could see how different learning had been achieved and then turned into new actions and approaches, and how a learning approach had really empowered us to take a few risks and some giant leaps of progress, including developing a volunteering toolkit. This is all now helping us to bring the Vision for Volunteering to life for our local community as we work towards introducing a citizen stewardship approach to local regeneration projects.
There was one more layer of ripples brought to the table by Wirral CVS, who provide infrastructure support for the Wirral VCFSE sector. Their map showed how volunteering is fitting into the strategy for our sector in the next 18 months, with opportunities coming up as part of the Borough of Culture 2024. It also showed how collaboration and the sharing of volunteers, with Wirral looking to implement a single front door approach to volunteering, will be key to helping people achieve better health outcomes and a happier life through volunteering. The vision looks bright!